.comment: The Search for a Truly Great Keyboard - page 2

The Weak Link

February 7, 2001

By
Dennis E. Powell

One thing I'd hoped to avoid was
keyboards with Windows keys. It's bad enough having to deal with
Wintrash in the form of lousy modems and braindead printers. I'll not
be constantly reminded that Windows users are apparently incapable of
hitting Ctrl-Esc at the same time.

Fortunately there is in my town a
fellow who deals in what I suppose the unenlightened would call
computer junk. If you really must find a 40-meg MFM drive, he's the
guy to see. (No, I won't tell you his name, no matter how sorry your
story. He's mine. Find your own.) He is also my supplier of IBM PS/2
keyboards (note to the newbies: PS/2 signifies a line of IBM
computers, not an over-hyped and under-produced Sony game console).

A visit to him and the relinquishment
of $30 got me a nicely boxed PS/2 keyboard. It's not as solid as the
original PC-AT keyboard, but it's sturdier than just about anything
else. The keyes have a satisfying click, and the springs are about
twice as stiff as the ones on my Omnikeys. The tops of the keycaps
are smaller, too, like truncated pyramids, making it less likely that
you'll hit one key while aiming for a different one.

The bad news is that the function keys
are splayed across the top, instead of living in useful fashion on
the left, making combinations such as Alt-F2 as much of a contortion
as the Ctrl-Esc that has apparently bedeviled the Windows crowd. And
I did have to poke around my miscellaneous hardware drawer for half
an hour in search of a PS/2 to AT keyboard plug adapter (after which
I gave up and bought one, after which within a day I found two that I
already had).